Tarleton-Frame: The hottest legislative race

No Republican is on the ballot in the 36th district. The last GOP legislator was voted out in 1982. Still, the face-off for an open state House seat between Democrats Gael Tarleton and Noel Frame is Seattle’s closest, most contentious legislative contest.

Tarleton is a two-term Seattle Port commissioner, the current Commission president, and part of a reform group that has brought much transparency and cleaned up crony capitalism at the Port.

Frame has worked to elect liberal Democrats as head of a group called the Progressive Majority. The Battleground, Wash., native is a fighter whose effectiveness has won her an unexpected (by Tarleton) endorsement from Gov. Chris Gregoire.

The two candidates give 36th District voters living in Ballard, Magnolia and Queen Anne a pretty clear choice, even though Tarleton and Frame hail from the same party. The differences were clear at a Greenwood Community Council forum on Tuesday.

Tarleton knows how to work the levers of influence: She believes, and argues, that the path to effective change lies in building coalitions.

She was once a defense intelligence analyst for the Pentagon — an opponent’s consultant in the 2007 Port race tried to blame Tarleton for the Iraq War — and now works as a research adviser at the University of Washington, helping get grant money.

Tarleton details a collaboration in which the ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver, B.C., are working with shippers to reduce diesel emissions. She talks of curbing stormwater runoff pollution into Puget Sound. She would try to revive a candy-soda pop tax — rejected in 2010 after a $16 million campaign by the American Beverage Association — to support a freeze in college tuition.

Frame, speaking to soaring tuition at the state’s public colleges, stated: “I have a fundamentally different approach to this problem.” Frame believes in leveraging change from the outside, and pledges to stay that way even if she’s elected to the Legislature.

“I would use the Legislature as a platform and bully pulpit,” said Frame. “My strength is in community organizing and engagement . . . It’s going to take a fundamental attitude change to invest in this state.”

Frame talks about getting the state to talk, a pledge similar to what Mike McGinn spoke of when running for Seattle mayor. She pledges to lead what she calls “a conversation about an income tax,” something a lot of legislators do not want to talk about.

Tarleton has liberal credentials — she’s board chair of the Northwest Progressive Institute, which battles Tim Eyman initiatives — and says she sympathizes with an income tax. But, she argued, “We have to take what we have today and do the best we can to deliver social services.”

Seattle politics is a sandbox in which interest groups are at play. After longtime State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson announced her retirement, no fewer than seven candidates fought it out in the August primary. The competition for endorsements has been fierce.

“It’s really important to look at endorsements and contributions in this race,” Frame said on Tuesday.

Frame is backed by two groups upset that Port commissioners have not done their bidding, the Sierra Club and the Teamsters Union: The Sierra Club, on Tuesday, delivered a blistering anti-Tarleton statement orchestrated for use by the Slog, web site of The Stranger, which has endorsed and promoted Frame’s candidacy.

The environmental group, on the losing side in local elections of late, claimed the Port of Seattle has lobbied in Congress against a bill called the Clean Ports Act, and argued that Tarleton has been unresponsive to its concerns.

Tarleton, no shrinking violet, has responded by saying the Sierra Club “is no longer trusted.” She puts her trust in such groups as Climate Solutions and the Sightline Institute on issues like emissions from ships and environmental impacts from coal trains.

The interest group eruptions are a sideshow, one used by the Frame campaign to put heat on Tarleton.

The central fact is a choice between two candidates with two very different strategies and styles for achieving change.